USD Magazine, Fall 2003

Law Professor Shaun Martin brought suit to change state election laws that previously denied California citizens both equal protection and due process.

Total Recall USD law Professor Shaun Martin briefly rook center stage in the history-making recall election of California's governor. Marrin, a USD professor since 1995, won a federal lawsuit in July that invalidated as unconstitutional a por– tion of the state's 1911 election law, which stipulated that

USD faculty members who share the distinc– tion of being Phi Beta Kappa members. Led by Gump, this ream of scholars, along with numerous individuals on campus, compiled the 154-page document pored over by 300 delegates during the application process. "There was a whole host of people on whom I had to rely for data and assistance in writing the report," Gump says. "They were indispensable and so supportive and key in our success." "This is a sign to our current andfuture students that they have chosen to study at one of the nation's finest institutions ofhigher learning. " - Provost Frank Lazarus Delegates scrutinized USD's curriculum, faculty, quality of students, governance sys– tem, degree of academic freedom, athletics program and libraries. Provost Frank Lazarus says USD's case was strong because it has a large group of Phi Beta Kappa members among its faculty and its student quality has increased dramatically, with jumps in both grade point averages and SAT scores of incoming freshmen from the last time USD applied. He also says USD's liberal arcs academic program is robust and well-balanced so that students can study broad curriculum with significant depth. "Professor Gump got a celebrarory whoop in his ear when he called from Seattle to tell me the good news," Lazarus says. 'Tm terrif– ically proud of our faculty and delighted for our liberal arcs students, who will have the opportunity to participate in chis most pres– tigious honor society. "This is another sign to our current and future students that they have chosen ro study at one of the nation's finest institutions of higher learning," Lazarus adds. "We can all be proud of this honor. "

unless a voter cast a yes or no vote on whether a recall was necessary, they could not vote on a successor to that office should the recall pass. With the success of Martin's suit, a voter now can abstain from voting on a recall and still vote on a successor. "Ir struck us as bizarre that the state would cry to rake away the right of eligible voters to have their votes count," says Martin, who, on behalf of San Diego and Los Angeles voters, filed the suit with his wife, a law professor at another school. Once it became clear in May that the recall would make it to the ballot box, "it was a scramble" to do research for the suit, says Marrin, who teaches courses in civil procedure and professional ethics. Colorado is the only other state to have a similar recall law. "We were very pleased," Martin says. "Ir could not be a more complete win." Gray Davis was the first governor in the state to be recal led, and the first U.S. governor to face such an election since 1921. The special election attracted 135 hopefuls including former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberrorh and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was elected to replace Davis. To Martin, however, the real winners were the voters. "(The change in the law) allowed a lot of votes to be counted that would otherwise have been discarded," he says. Pardon Our Dust Students aren't exactly donning hard hats, dodging bulldozers or scaling scaffolding, but Alcala Park resembles a construction zone just the same. In the last three years, the university has constructed seven new buildings, adding more square footage in this era than in any other since the campus was built a half-century ago. The recently opened Donald P. Shiley Center for Science and Technology and the new six– level West Marian Way Parking Structure at the west end of campus greeted students this fall. Before the semester's end, the three-story Degheri Alumni Center will be finished. Even before the dust cleared on the latest projects, university officials already were hard at work paving the way for yet another facility, this time for the School of Education. "We don't stand back and pat ourselves on the back," says facilities management Director Roger Manion, whose staff shepherds blueprints through the city government's approval

process, hires the architects and contractors and supervises design. "It gets hectic now and then, bur it's al l part of what we do. " Right now, Manion and his ream are introducing plans for a new School of Education building to the Linda Vista community before they present the proj– ect to the city planning commission and the City Council. Slated to stand in the Camino Hall parking lot, the proposed building is expected to measure approximately 90,000 square feet. "Right now we don't have any funding," Manion says, "bur we're starting to work our way through the approval process." Roger Manion at the Degheri Alumni Center, under construction near the main entrance to campus.

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FALL 2003